


from russia, with love

by bellezza



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Other, awkward people being awkwardly adorable together, bucky is awkward at words, i just like writing cute stuff okay, natasha is awkward at friends, so much stupid self indulgent shit, they're both just awkward, this is majorly self indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-01-26 03:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1673165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellezza/pseuds/bellezza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of mostly Natasha-centric one-shots from tumblr, of various levels of seriousness. Mainly MCU, but could be vaguely 616 compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Natsha’s phone vibrates for the third time in the past two hours when she finally reaches over and turns it off.

“Barring another alien invasion of New York, the world is not going to fall to pieces just because we didn’t take any phone calls for twelve hours,” she says as she rolls back over and into the warm dip in the mattress at James’s side.

Besides, she doesn’t actually have any bosses anymore. She’s technically freelance now, even if the freelance work she takes has her on the same payroll as before.

Against her James huffs a laugh and settles his arm over her, fingers playing warmly over her hipbone. He’s not comfortable touching her with the metal one yet, and she’s not going to push it. Even if she is curious.

“I hate to say it, but we do need to eat,” he points out, his thumb tracing a circle against her back.

“What,” she intones, face schooled carefully blank, “you’re hungry again? Already?”

He flashes a grin that is nothing short of provocative.

“Well,” he says, “maybe after pizza."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of mostly Natasha-centric one-shots from tumblr, of various levels of seriousness. Mainly MCU, but could be vaguely 616 compliant.

Sharon is leaving the range when her phone rings, number unknown. She suppresses the urge to twitch for her gun as she answers it.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end is female, dry and frustratingly familiar, but she can't pinpoint its owner. "So you should probably be expecting a phone call."

"Uh," Sharon says, scanning her surroundings, looking for a tail, looking for a trap. She pulled a gun on a Hydra agent and she's Peggy Carter's niece; she's fairly certain that makes her a viable target. It's not arrogance; it's healthy paranoia. Especially considering this is a new number. "Excuse me? Who is this?"

When she reaches her car, keys already in hand, she ducks down to check the bottom of the carriage for anything that shouldn't be there.

"Romanoff. We worked together? I gave Rogers your new number, and I figured I should probably let you know. Sorry, was that too creepy?"

It takes Sharon a long, frozen moment where she's standing rooted to the spot, her hand wrapped around the car door handle, for her to process what she's hearing.

Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff, one of SHIELD's top (former) agents (Sharon is fairly certain she was at least level 9), the Black Widow, tracked down her new number and passed it off to Captain fucking America.

This may possibly be weirder than aliens in New York.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of mostly Natasha-centric one-shots from tumblr, of various levels of seriousness. Mainly MCU, but could be vaguely 616 compliant.

“I want to learn how to cook,” Bucky says one evening over Italian takeout.

Natalia looks up from twirling her pasta one-handed around her fork (a trick Bucky still has yet to master) and quirks one fine eyebrow.

“Okay,” she says after taking a moment to shovel her food into her mouth — elegantly, because everything she does is elegant — chew, and swallow. “Anything in particular bring this on?”

“Well,” he says, and has to stop to get his words in order. He’s never been great at them, not like Steve and his inspirational speeches, but it’s been harder since—waking up. Sometimes he’ll forget the simplest terms, and other times he’ll come up empty of meaning. Sam says it’s because he’s lived so many lies the last six decades, that the constant reprogramming screwed with his brain and his brain still has to catch up, to rebuild the pieces it lost.

Whatever the reason, Natalia is nothing but patient as she waits for him to continue. He wonders sometimes how much of that patience is feigned and how much of it is genuine; even for him she’s hard to read. But he trusts her. He’s decided to trust her, trust the fact that she cares and wants to help.

“When we were kids we didn’t have a whole lot,” he continues. “Most stuff outside the basics was too expensive. Everything’s cheaper and more accessible now, and anyway—“

“You’re in a higher income bracket?”

“Yeah."

“Okay.” Natalia agrees immediately. “Couples’ cooking classes?”

Bucky grins. “Sounds like fun.”

“You’re lucky I like you enough to put aside my domestic laziness for this, babe." 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of mostly Natasha-centric one-shots from tumblr, of various levels of seriousness. Mainly MCU, but could be vaguely 616 compliant.

_I wasn’t sure who I could trust_.

Fury’s words don’t ring in her mind so much as pound there, a dull, throbbing pain like a migraine she can’t shake. Natasha lightly touches a hand to her shoulder, pulsing in time with her head. One of Fury’s team gave her painkillers, but those haven’t worked well for her in a while.

“Once we confirmed your location and I went to extract you, we sent someone to move Hawley to a secure location,” Hill says, walking precisely three and a half steps ahead of her. “We got some things Hawley might wear - I had to guess at your size, but I’m reasonably certain they’ll fit.” 

The room Hill leads her to is small and square, situated at the northeast end of the bunker according to the mental map Natasha has been building in her mind. It’s lit by only a single bare lightbulb set into the ceiling. A blue suit lies spread out on a table, brilliantly colored in contrast to the dull greyscale of the bunker; there are matching shoes and jewelry set beside it. 

Natasha begins stripping off her clothes before the door’s even closed. Through a door she finds a utility shower with only one temperature setting. Her shoulder aches dully under the pounding cold water, but it feels good to wash off the day’s blood and grime. It calms her. Natasha relishes heat, but it’s the cold that puts her most at ease.

She runs a finger over the puckered wound on her shoulder, stitched expertly together and already healing. Good work despite barely adequate field supplies, but it will leave another scar. She owes the Winter Soldier for that one, too.

 _Bucky. His name is Bucky Barnes, and he is Steve’s friend. You don’t owe him anything_.

Hill is waiting for her back in the main room when she finishes, smoothing creases out of the expensive silk shirt and suit. It’s such a mundane sight, something she would never have thought she’d see the Deputy Director of SHIELD do, that Natasha’s almost amused. How low they’ve been brought by a glorified squad of Nazi thugs.

She grabs a towel off the end of the table and dries herself off, careful of her healing wound. Under the suit she’ll wear a basic reinforced tunic and shorts fitted with hidden sheathes for knives, pouches for her shock discs. She slips them on and reaches for the blouse next. She’ll wear her field suit to the infiltration point, but for now she has to be sure this suit fits.

It doesn’t startle her when Hill speaks up.

“I thought you should know,” she says from where she’s leaning against the wall behind Natasha, arms crossed over her chest, “that I was the one who convinced Fury not to contact you.” 

 _I wasn’t sure who I could trust_.

That does surprise her.

“Oh?” Natasha keeps her voice perfectly disinterested. She practically sounds bored.

“Once I’d gotten him to a safe point and we got word that Pierce had sent Strike out after Rogers, he wanted me to get word to you. I convinced him we had no way of knowing you weren’t compromised, especially considering Hydra sent the Winter Soldier after him.” Because the Soldier belonged to Hydra, and Hydra was manipulating the Cold War from both sides. “He agreed with my argument, but I don’t think he liked it.”

Natasha remembers sitting across an interrogation room table from a smiling, placid man in a dark suit, and feeling cold and cocky and shaken to pieces all at once. She remembers the inscrutable look of Fury’s single dark eye the second time they’d met, when he offered her her life in exchange for her service.  _I don’t, as a rule, especially like when my agents disobey my orders_ , he’d told her. And years later,  _I want you for the Avengers_.

Their business has its risks; they all know them. After Loki Natasha had felt a hollow hole in her chest she recognized as grief - for Coulson, for one of the few men who she trusted and who had trusted her. She could count on one hand the number of people who got that close.

Except Fury, she'd thought.

Including him, apparently.

She slips the last button of the blouse into its hole and reaches for the skirt, slides it on and zips it up. It fits perfectly, with exactly enough room to maneuver. When she reaches for the jacket to pull that on, she turns finally to look Maria Hill in the eye.

“I can’t say I blame you,” she says, shrugging her arms into the jacket and buttoning that up as well. And she doesn’t. She understands Maria’s logic perfectly, because Natasha does not go out of her way to get people to trust her. Trust creeps up on her, accidental and surprising and completely unplanned. It blindsides her every time.

Hill moves forward then, picking up the shoes with one hand and holding them out. A silent offering.

“I was wrong,” she admits. “Fury trusts you. I won’t be wrong again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been wanting to write about Natasha's reaction to Fury implying he didn't trust her, that brief, muted look of pain, like she'd been punched in the chest. And I've been wanting to write Natasha and Maria interacting, because I need them as friends like I need air.
> 
> Two birds, one stone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of mostly Natasha-centric one-shots from tumblr, of various levels of seriousness. Mainly MCU, but could be vaguely 616 compliant.

"How's your shoulder?” Natasha hears Steve approach before she sees him, but she doesn’t move from her spot on the walkway, leaning against a railing and drinking in the world. These are the last few quiet moments they’ll have before they leave to stop Hydra.

She rolls it in a shrug. “I’ve had worse. It’s not going to hold me back in any way.” She glances over at him.

There's something about Steve that's seemed broken since the shoot-out, since he learned that the Winter Soldier is his best friend. Natasha remembers the vivid, unearthly blue of Clint's eyes on the helicarrier and supposes she understands.

"Are you sure about this, Natasha?" His voice is quiet, tired and pained. "This is going to expose you. Are you really willing to follow Captain America for this?"

It sounds like he's asking something else. Natasha can't quite meet his eyes.

"Nah. But the guy I owe my life to to—I’ll follow him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry did somebody say bucky/natasha parallels


	6. Chapter 6

_james_ , she starts to call him, because the first time she calls him bucky he reacts negatively and violently, jerking back with a snarl and a look in his eye like a wounded animal caught in a steel trap. the other name has too many expectations that drag him down like he's drowning and weighted with stones. james is close enough to who he was without making him feel as if the whole world is balanced on his back.

natasha, he calls her, until one tense night he hears her whimpering in her sleep and reaches out to touch her with two fingers of his right hand. natasha, he says, natasha, and when she doesn't wake he reaches for that discarded name instead.  _natalia, wake up_ , he urges, and she does, eyes wide and for a moment almost feral until he slips his hand in hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like writing them in MCU without the Cold War lovers background, but damned if they're not going to still call each other James and Natalia if I have anything to say about it.


	7. Chapter 7

“Who were you before, Natasha?” he asks her one night, their bodies pressed together in a tiny steel passage and the mission outside, waiting for them. The mission is always waiting for them.

She glances to him at her side and sees his profile, barely-lit, a sliver of pale skin and pale hair in the darkness. He looks like he leapt to life straight out of a propaganda film, all perfect angles, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Like the kind of boy her mother would have warned her to guard her heart from, if she’d had a mother and a heart.

Before she was a creature of lies and murder. Her body was crafted into the perfect weapon and she learned every angle of a perfect shot. She’s still a weapon, but it’s different now: the blood washes off her hands a little easier, and there’s someone to watch her back in the dark. The body at her side is warm and breathing, not cold as stone.

“It doesn't matter who i was before,” she says, and smiles.  _You'll never know anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not-so-vague references to edmonson's natasha ahoy


	8. Chapter 8

"Tell me about this one," Natasha says, reaching out to trace a scar across his right bicep. Thin enough to be from a blade or a bullet graze, but textured like a burn. James glances at it and frowns, reaching for the memory.

"Austria, '44. Hydra had some kind of laser gun. Almost burned Steve's eyebrows off."

She laughs and takes a swig from the vodka before passing it back to him. "My guess was a heated blade."

"Well, you're not far off. That's what it felt like." James's eyes travel over her chest, her arms - settle on her shoulder. She knows his pick this turn before he even nods to it and says, "You haven't told me about that one yet."

She has to meet his gaze. She has to catch it and hold it, and reach out to rest her hand over his. "This one, darling, was you."

A shudder courses through him. He reaches out with his free hand - his left hand - to brush his fingers over it. He touches her more gently than a loaded gun. "I remember."


	9. Chapter 9

When they can, they follow a routine, less because certain individuals need it than because they all do. Their lives are chaotic enough that familiarity, repetition, are cherished comforts. It’s important for all of them to try and feel normal.

What that means is that Friday nights Natasha and Bucky are left home by themselves while Sam and Steve help serve meals down at the local veterans’ home, usually ordering mediocre takeout and watching one of the movies on the list Natasha has personally drafted as required viewing for ex-brainwashed assassins trying to catch up on modern pop culture.

Which is how they wind up curled up on opposite ends of the couch sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching  _Coneheads_. The tangible disdain has been rolling off of him in waves for the past hour.

"I feel personally victimized by Natasha Romanoff for making me watch this movie," Bucky says as the Coneheads settle into their new suburban dream home.

"Very good," Natasha says. "How long have you been sitting on that  _Mean Girls_  reference?”

"Since you made me watch  _Drop Dead Fred_.”

Natasha snorts once, her private version of a short  _ha_. “That movie’s a classic. You’re just too old to appreciate it.”

"Back in my day," Bucky says, drawing out all four words, "comedy actually meant being funny."

"Do yourself a favor and ask Clint how he feels about  _Reefer Madness_  one of these days.”

"Thing is, I kind of expect Barton to have terrible taste in everything."

As Beldar is facing down the Garthok, a strategically aimed piece of popcorn bounces off of Natasha’s forehead. She catches it and eats it, shooting Bucky a dirty glare. “If you don’t stop being disruptive, I am going to kick you out of the theater.”

"I’d like to see you try," Bucky says with a grin - or tries to say, because suddenly there is a pillow being shoved in his face. He responds by grabbing his own pillow and hitting her with it in self defense.

The popcorn bowl goes flying when Natasha launches herself at him.

 

* * *

 

"What the hell even happened here?" Steve asks, staring in horrified disbelief at the carnage covering his living room.

Bucky looks up from where he’s crouched over Natasha, one arm pinning her hands to her back while she spits hair out of her mouth and tries to twist away. For the first time he takes in the state of the living room: smashed popcorn spilled across the couch and floor, pillows everywhere, one framed photo of the Commandoes hanging on the wall at a tilt, and a pillow that’s split open and started to bleed stuffing out onto the floor.

"…Oops?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha loves terrible 90s comedies, don't even disagree or I will fight you


	10. Chapter 10

"Holy shit," Skye exclaims. Her voice is loud enough to carry from one end of the hall to the other and probably also to Antarctica. "Holy  _shit_!”

"Shhhhh!" Jemma tries to shush her, but Jemma is only one powerless scientist and Skye is a force of nature that cannot be contained. "You’re being terribly rude and also you’re going to make everybody stare at us - oh, there we go, yes, look, they’re staring, I knew it." She tries for an an awkward, pacifying smile and hopes they move along.

Who is she kidding? She’s with  _Skye_. There’s no chance of that happening, because Skye is going to march right up to them the way she’s doing right - this - second. Jemma slinks nervously along in her wake.

Captain Rogers’s arms are certainly well-formed, aren’t they?  _Manscaping_ ….  _Jemma, no, you stop that right this instant!_

"Hi!" It seems impossible for one person to literally embody the definition of  _bubbly_  the way Skye does, and yet. She thrusts her hand out, a barely suppressed grin only just not splitting her face wide open. “I’m Skye - uh, that is -  _Agent_  Skye. We haven’t met yet but I’ve heard  _so_ much about you - well, obviously, I mean  _who hasn’t_? Captain America and the…artist formerly known as the Winter Soldier! I’ve seen all the footage, and by all the footage I literally mean all of it, including the stuff the SSR and SHIELD never released. And can I just say wow?”

Steve Rogers looks appropriately alarmed, rather like a cat when a person suddenly and vehemently leaps to their feet, but Bucky Barnes is unreadable.

Until he laughs and takes Skye’s open hand. “I like your style, kid.”


	11. Chapter 11

"No," is the first thing Bucky says when he opens the nondescript shipping box and pulls out the packing paper to find what's inside. "No, you did  _not_."

Across the table, Steve is looking at him with that barely-suppressed punk shit half-grin that Bucky has begun to remember. The same smile he used to get when he saw Bucky unwittingly hit on slacks in their old neighborhood, or a bully with a black eye. Now he's smiling that same smile at Bucky, and Bucky loves Steve Rogers, he does, but right now he kind of hates him.

Because peering up at Bucky from inside the box is a teddy bear.

 

* * *

 

At first he tries to throw the stupid thing out, but Steve looks at him with those big pleading puppy eyes. Steve looks at him and says, "I got it off Etsy, it's handmade completely from scratch. You gotta admire the craftsmanship, Buck!"

And okay, sure, objectively it's a very well-made bear. Bucky knows good stitching. He grew up seeing his mom and his sisters do it, hell, they even taught him, and during the war sometimes a man had to stitch his own clothes when the weather was bad and holes were showing through. He's mourned the commercialized machine stitching at department stores while Natalia laughs at him, and he still fixes the holes in his clothes even though Pepper knows a dozen professionals he could go to instead.

But the bear.

The stupid fucking bear.

It's wearing his jacket. _And_  his mask.

(In the end he keeps it, but he stuffs it in the corner of a spare bedroom they don't use, crosses his fingers, and hopes to God no one goes in.)

 

* * *

 

Wouldn't you know it, his luck is shit. There is no such thing as a secret in this stupid Tower as far as Bucky can tell, because the next day at lunch Tony ambles in and says, "How's it going, Bucky Bear?"

Bucky chokes on his sandwich and starts coughing. Bruce reaches over and helpfully smacks his back.

"Bucky Bear?" Banner asks, politely amused, still slapping Bucky's back as Bucky tries not to die of asphyxiation or embarrassment.

Soon it's only a matter of time before the whole Tower knows.

There are no damn secrets here.

 

* * *

 

"I think he's cute," Nat says one evening. She's fished the stupid thing out of the spare bedroom and put him on a bookshelf in the living room, but at least when the lights are on low the shelf is too shadowed for him to see the thing properly

Or it would be, if the serum hadn't enhanced his vision so well.

"You also think those giant plush germ dolls are cute," he counters, with a bit more venom in his voice than he usually directs at her.

She just gives him her smug little half-smile and makes the bear wave its arm.

 

* * *

 

Maybe he could learn to live with it, if it didn't keep haunting him outside the Tower, too.

He's lying on a rooftop in Los Angeles, the summer heat a thick blanket pressing against his legs and back, but he doesn't mind it too much. His rifle sits on its stand between his hands, gunmetal slick and smooth and warm to the touch. The crickets are chirping, he's hunting bad guys, and things are starting to feel - not right in the world, because the world will never be right, but better.

In his ear he hears Steve, quietly narrating his position, the men he's tailing, the scope of the mission.

Then Steve says, "I'm going in. Hawkeye, Bucky Bear, cover me."

Bucky grits his teeth, but he does it.

 

* * *

 

One night he gets home from a rough week alone in Madripoor, sticky with dried sweat and ready for a shower, a beer, and bed. The lock clicks open with a twist of his key, and as soon as the door is open Liho runs to greet him, purring and rubbing against his legs so that he has to take big, exaggerated steps just to turn around and close the door.

It's dark inside, but of course he has no trouble navigating the familiar spaces of  _home_. In the week since he's been gone he can see the little ways his absence has changed this space: Natalia's jacket lies slung over a chair instead of hanging in the closet; the blankets sit in a pile on the couch rather than at the end in a neatly folded pile.

He locks up behind him and pads silently back into their bedroom, hoping he doesn't wake her, and he doesn't turn on the lights. She's as light a sleeper as he is most nights.

Bucky stops short when he leans over to kiss her and finds her curled on her side, one arm wrapped tight around that infernal bear.

He wants to be irritated but he can't be, because dammit, dammit, it's  _too fucking cute_. Not the bear itself, which he still hates in a vague way just for existing, but the sight of Natalia sleeping on his side of the bed, hair fanned out on the pillow and the stupid teddy bear nuzzled up against her face.

He shakes her shoulder once, gently, and lets his hand there. Lets his mouth curl into a smile when her eyes flutter open, pupils huge in the dark.

"Hey," he says. "Your stupid bear is in my spot."

She yawns and stretches and blinks up at him innocently as she presses a kiss to the bear's head. "You move it, you lose it, sucker. He's been keeping me company."

"Yeah, well. Tell him I'm back now and he has to take a hike."

Natalia looks at the bear, her face pulling into mock-concern. "Wow. He's really not being nice, Bucky Bear. I think you should shoot him."

"Did you just tell a stuffed bear to shoot me?" he asks, incredulous. "Now who's not being nice?"

Nat just smiles, kisses the bear again, and rolls over to deposit him ( _it_ ) on her night stand. He takes advantage of her absence to reclaim his side of the bed. She rolls back over and against him, her nose wrinkled. "You smell."

"Thanks," he says dryly. "I was going to shower first, but I had more pressing matters, like my girlfriend having another guy in our bed."

"Whatever," she replies, resting her head on his outstretched arm anyway. "You're washing the sheets tomorrow."

"Whatever," he counters. "You're picking up your mess in the living room.

She smiles and lets her eyes drift closed again.

Over her head Bucky can see the bear where she left him, lying lopsided against a candle, and he hates it a little bit less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The particular Bucky Bear referenced is the amazing one produced by sometimesyoufly on Etsy :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the five times bucky borrowed something of natasha's, for natxromanoff/myrandaroyces

i. she doesn’t make anything of it at first, just notes with vague irritation that her pens keep disappearing. at first she thinks it’s tony, taking and misplacing things because that’s what tony does. then she thinks it might be steve, borrowing a pen to doodle with and forgetting to put it back.

ii. james has taken to wearing his hair pulled back some days, gathered in a sloppy ponytail or bun at the base of his neck. it’s cute until she notices her nice rhinestone studded ponytail is missing, and two days later james comes up to the lounge with it gleaming in his hair.

iii. the third one was an entirely unavoidable situation that irritated her anyway. an emergency, a mission gone south, and james is careening her corvette to a stop at the curb and hastily shoving the door open for her to get in. “i never said you could drive her,” she snaps as she jumps in and slams the door shut behind her.

iv. she makes plans to go out with pepper and maria one night, to an exclusive executive club pepper can get them into where they can have a good time without being bothered by prying eyes. she’s at the door, ready to go except for her oversized leather jacket, and she  _swore_ she hung it up last time she wore it but it’s nowhere to be found. and that’s when james walks in, the jacket, by some miracle of fashion physics that would astonish jane foster, fitting comfortable on his frame.

v. he has a thing about sleeping on the left side of the bed. she understands. he prefers his human arm to be near her, to feel the warm contact of skin against skin without metal in between. it’s so ingrained that she notices him sleeping on the left even when he’s alone. so it’s a surprise when she comes home one night to find him curled up on the right, his face pressed into her pillow. she smiles and wakes him gently and crawls in next to him, on his left, and he smiles and wraps an arm around her, pulls her close and falls back asleep.


End file.
